szia budapest! igen, nem es koszonom!

choo choo! budapest! (if i didn't mention this before, i flew to prague but took the train from then on)

unfortunately, budapest was a major fail because my cs host wasn't exactly what i was expecting. marton was living on his own, but he had an ex-wife and two children, who were the most adorable things in the world. but unlike the other two hosts, he had my entire itinerary in budapest planned and he accompanied me for all of them. it was nice to not have to plan anything, but i couldn't really do anything that i wanted. so... budapest = fail.

i only had two days and the first, we did a bike tour (which was cool) of all the major sights in pest. on the second day, we ate breakfast at his ex-wife's (weird) and went to see the sights in buda. i think i got to see most of the major sights, but buda and pest each in one day was impossible. oh well, maybe another visit in the future. and so, i have very few pictures from budapest and if i do, it's mostly underground in caves because this guy had some obsession with caves. i practically saw all of buda underground through its caves.

hungary's currency... the forint

shoes on the danube memorial

the most beautiful mcdonald's interior i've ever seen

drinking wine flowing out from the underground caves







yea... comparably not many pictures from budapest.

so as you've all probably heard, this icelandic volcano (which no one can pronounce lol) is potentially ruining my vacation to rome... and possibly my return home. all i can do is wait...

after a couple of nights out on the town this semester, i've come to the conclusion that danes cannot dance. and they let girls in wearing sneakers. that is absolutely unheard of! but i guess it's ok because they're beautiful people... so unfair. and some of their dj's are god awful... how can you play the circle of life in the middle of the night??? how?!

friday was the danish queen's 70th birthday. it is practically a national holiday and the tradition is that everyone stands outside her palace and at noon, she comes out and waves to the people with the rest of the royal family. then she takes her carriage down to the city hall for a reception with the mayor. it was a dose of danish culture but quite uneventful: "there's the queen!" (wave danish flag voraciously) (queen passes by) (everyone disperses) probably a total time span of 5 minutes.

i have bad news. i don't think i'll be bringing any souvenirs. first, because i'm broke. second, because there's nothing really that is "danish" in the way that, say, clogs are dutch. so... sorry!

i am really looking forward to this summer! my major goal is to learn how to cook :)
so you are all welcome to be my taste testers (and i expect brutal honesty)
and as an update, i will be able to finish my last year in school, but i'll be living on one heck of a tight budget. that includes this summer as well. i guess i won't be tan this summer then :(